Kazu Kibuishi’s science fiction Western Daisy Kutter: The Last Train uses distinctly toned art to put a new spin on traditional elements. Daisy was a noted thief and gunslinger, but she’s now retired, running a dry goods store and very bored.
Daisy Kutter: The Last Train cover
Daisy Kutter: The Last Train Buy this book
Her ex-partner, Tom, is the town’s sheriff, and two strangers have just appeared to try and recruit Daisy to rob a train. This could be a traditional Western, until the robots show up. At that point, it has a lot of the flavor of Serenity, with its modern take on morality and living outside the law. What makes this particular setup unusual is that they claim that the train’s owner wants Daisy to plan the robbery in order to test his security systems.
Kibuishi’s best-known for editing Flight, but in this, his first long-form work, the pacing sets this story apart. The opening scene, which establishes Daisy’s skills, mood, and personality, is wordless until another character arrives, yet the reader is instantly swept into the environment through differently sized panels that focus on key elements. Together, moments make up the bigger picture. Kibuishi’s fondness for small panels make for a dense story with plenty of world-building, although he uses full-page images when the mood calls for it.
All the classic scenes are here: the poker game showdown. The barroom face-off. The memories around the old gun. And of course, the climactic showdown on the deserted, dusty main street. I particularly liked the rain scenes, with Daisy pondering her choices while the water pours down on her — it’s a powerful visual, well-executed. She’s a strong, tough lead, a pleasure to watch.
The clash between individuality and the rule of law is at the root of every Western, and here the conflict is foregrounded though Daisy’s history with Tom. She’s always made her own rules and lived true to her own beliefs, but Tom now represents the rules of society. She can’t accept that maybe he’s right, or maybe he’s grown up in ways she hasn’t. Her stubbornness puts them both in danger; relying on only her skill isn’t enough. She has to learn to share with those she trusts.
Yang explains, "I started American Born Chinese about five years into my comics career. (Though at the time, it was really more of a vocation since I wasn’t making any money at it.) Up ’til then, I’d done a couple of stories with Asian-American protagonists, but I never dealt with the Asian-American experience head-on. Since my own ethnic heritage is such an important part of how I understand myself, I knew I wanted to. I came up with three ideas and couldn’t decide which one was the best. American Born Chinese is me doing all three at once."
Published by First Second Books
A couple of years ago, Gene Luen Yang began to release segments of American Born Chinese as mini-comics. I’d remembered his work from comics like Gordon Yamato and the King of the Geeks and Duncan’s Kingdom and that was enough to persuade me to give this new project a try. At the time, I remember thinking that I had absolutely no idea where this was going, and was more than a little unsure of it as a whole. Now that the book is complete and published as a single unit, my only real question is why I’d ever doubted him in the first place. In ancient China, the Monkey King is desperate for recognition by the other deities who refuse to see him as anything but a monkey—so he decides it’s time to prove them all wrong once and for all. Jin Wang is a modern-day kid who moves to a new town and discovers that it’s not easy being the only Chinese-American student at your school. And Danny is your typical high school basketball player whose life is perfect every year until his cousin Chin-Kee comes to visit from China, forcing Danny to change schools in an effort to escape the stigma attached to him as a result. They’re three very different lives—but they’re all wanting the exact same thing.
Yang’s American Born Chinese is one of the stronger examples of multiple, intertwined narratives that I can remember. Each of the three threads—the Monkey King, Jin, and Danny—stands on its own initially as its own, independent story. It’s not until we get to the end of the book that one sees how the plots of the three are connected, doing so in a fairly delightful manner. None of the stories feel like they’re getting short shrift from the others, and that balance between the narratives helps keep the reader interested in all three. At the same time, it’s clear from the beginning that the three stories are connected when it comes to the themes of identity and acceptance. All of our main characters are desperate to shed something connected to themselves—the Monkey King’s species, Jin’s Chinese heritage, and Danny’s cousin—for the sake of how other people perceive them. Yang neatly sidesteps the chance for this to become a story that preaches or speaks condescendingly to the reader, though. The basic theme is stated quickly and then left in the background for the reader to think about; while the basic idea permeates the book, one never feels like Yang is hitting you over the head with the ideas. Strong storytelling aside, the characters in American Born Chinese are who will keep the average reader’s interest attuned to the book. It’s hard not to feel sympathy for each of our three protagonists, even though they’re all coming from very different places. The Monkey King’s early dismissal by the other deities stings in its rude (if truthful) nature, and you want him to succeed and show the other deities his own worthiness as a direct result. Yang has a fun time retelling the Chinese fable of the Monkey King here, keeping a light level of humor attached to his story as he explains the different disciplines that the Monkey King learns, as well as the Monkey King’s sharp tongue and jokes that crop up throughout his narrative. Where the Monkey King is self-assured and looking for revenge, though, Jin resonates with readers for different reasons as he desperately tries to get validation from a peer group that’s uninterested in his presence. Jin’s life changing after he leaves San Francisco is hard to not sympathize with. It’s a very typical story of a kid being bullied by the others at his school for being different, but it’s told with real heart and honesty that gives it a nice emotional punch. In particular, Jin’s relationship with his friend Wei-Chen stands out for its realism and how much it says about Jin as a person. Yang isn’t afraid to show Jin’s issues with his own heritage and identity by having him take them out on Wei-Chen, and by not keeping Jin a perfect or ideal character makes him all the more interesting. It’s hard to ignore what for some may be the most controversial part of American Born Chinese, namely the story of Danny and his cousin Chin-Kee. Chin-Kee is portrayed as the ultimate negative stereotype of a Chinese person, from traditional ancient Chinese clothing and an unrealistic yellow coloring (which no other Asian characters in the book have), to horrible buck teeth and an accent that substitutes all R sounds with an L. Ignoring that Yang himself is Chinese-American, it’s certainly understandable why he’s doing this; Chin-Kee is supposed to be Danny’s nightmare, everything that he hates about Chinese heritage in general. It’s certainly meant to provoke, to disturb, and to annoy the reader. Does Yang succeed? Absolutely. It’s also an outward manifestation of all of the racism that some of the characters in American Born Chinese display, both spoken and otherwise. It makes Danny a more interesting character, because you simultaneously have pity for him being saddled with Chin-Kee, even as Danny’s embarrassment and disdain for his cousin make him a little tarnished and not entirely able to be sympathetic for his own specific faults coming to life in such a way. It’s a fine balance that Yang strikes, and the character does everything that Yang intends it to accomplish.
Yang has a beautiful, simple art style in American Born Chinese. It’s a very clean look for the book, drawing the characters with a minimum of crisp, clear lines. There’s a real care to the look and feel of the story, with as much care paid to the backgrounds and settings of each scene as to the characters that inhabit them. Each page works well as an individual unit, carefully composed and originally drawn in the dimensions of a square. It’s impressive how well each page fits together, with the flow moving from panel to panel easily, and everything from colors to lettering carefully selected to work as part of the greater whole. Yang seems to especially have fun with drawing the Monkey King sequences, which between the kung fu attacks and the elaborate looking demons gives him a real chance to show off his creativity and imagination. It’s a nice break from the reality of the other two storylines, while at the same time maintains the same basic visual style that Yang carries from one character’s thread to the next.
Yang collaborated with Derek Kirk Kim on the comic Duncan’s Kingdom some time ago, with Kim soon after having a break-out hit in the form of Same Difference and Other Stories. This, then, is Yang’s own break-out project; if this doesn’t put him on the map in comics and give him the attention that he rightfully deserves, I don’t know what will. Beautifully written and drawn, and coupled with extremely high production values from publisher First Second,American Born Chinese is a fantastic book from start to finish. Highly recommended.
Purchase Links: Mars Import | Amazon.com —Greg McElhatton
POSTED BY ESTHER CLAUDIO ON MARCH 28TH, 2011 6 COMMENTS Persepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s autobiography. It covers her childhood and teenage years in her hometwon, Tehran; her experiences abroad while she studies at the French Lyceum in Austria; and her return to a country devastated by war and mistreated by the Regime. Therefore it is hardly surprising that the protagonist’s identity is formed at the crossroads of two cultures, the Western and the Eastern ones, without really belonging to either of them. Satrapi herself has stated that “[she is] a foreigner in Iran. . . Nowhere is [her] home any more” (Tully, 2004) and this feeling of alienation is materialised throughout the work. Thus,Persepolis revels in the middle-grounds between opposite stances, with images which are able to show the complexity both of the situation in her country and of the author’s personal life. One of the richest and most representative images may be this one: Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 283, 3)
[Click on image to enlarge] This image shows the picture that she had to draw to pass the exam for university, where she would study fine arts. She knew that, in the wake of Iran-Iraq war, when propaganda was overwhelming and 40 % of places were reserved for martyrs’and handicapped people’s children, one of the exam topics would be the martyrs’ representation. This image constitutes an interesting re-interpretation of both Christian and Muslim religious symbology. Thus, we can read, in the text box above, that:
I practiced by copying a photo of Michelangelo’s “La Pietà” about twenty times. On that day, I reproduced it by putting a black chador on Mary’s head, an army uniform on Jesus, and then I added two tulips, symbols of the martyrs, on either side so there would be no confusion.
But there is, of course, considerable “confusion” here. Satrapi alludes to the tradition of “La Pietà” to subvert the politically correct forms required by examiners by incorporating a Christian archetype of compassion and suffering with a nationalist Iranian composition. Simultaneously, she is stressing or commenting that the tendency to glorify martyrdom and suffering in propaganda is not a strategy exclusively used by Muslims or Iranians and that also Christians and Westerners have glorified it throughout History. Additionally, Satrapi subverts the tendency of westerners to dehumanize veiled women as if they were massive undistinguished figures, mere statues, like this model: Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 301, 3-7)
[Click on image to enlarge] In these panels, Satrapi draws herself with her friends around the veiled model – the archetype of the silenced Muslim woman that the Regime provides to be copied not only on their canvases, but also in their lives as women. However, this model is also the stereotype of the Muslim woman which has spread in the West.[1] In contrast, we see Marjane and her mates looking at the woman in the chador with discontent; and in the next page, we learn the subversion tactics that many Iranian women from her generation employed after the revolution (“showing your wrist, a loud laugh, having a walkman”…). Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 304,3-4,6-7)
[Click on image to enlarge] The contrast between the woman in a chador and the women like Marjane and her mates highlights the difference between the image projected of the Eastern woman both by the Regime and by the West. In Persepolis, pictures of veiled women reject the stereotype of the Muslim voiceless woman. Instead, Satrapi’s female figures are human and full of character and individualism, even in veil. As she herself has stated in an interview with Annie Tully: “the book Persepolis I wrote it for the other ones, not for Iranians” (2004) and it questions the image of the western woman as the paradigm of modern femininity, educated and liberated. In this way, Marjane Satrapi’s style dwells on the contrast, on the contradictions which problematise reality through an apparently naïve and simple drawing and narration. REFERENCES Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape) Tully, Annie. “An Interview with Marjane Satrapi.” Bookslut. October 2004. <http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_10_003261.php> Accessed March 20th, 2011. [1] As post-colonial feminists have stated, western feminism has set up as the paradigm of modernity, thus creating a stereotype of non-western women as a homogeneus block of passive, traditional women in the margins of progress. One of the most influential post-colonial feminists, Chandra Mohanty, states that western feminism ”colonize[s] the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/re-presenting a composite, singular “Third World Woman”—an image which appears arbitrarily constructed, but nevertheless carries with it the authorizing signature of Western humanist discourse.’ ” Thus, she argues ”that assumptions of privilege and ethnocentric universality on the one hand, and inadequate self-consciousness about the effect of Western scholarship on the “third world” in the context of a world system dominated by the West on the other, characterize a sizable extent of Western feminist work on women in the third world.” (“Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses“. Feminist Review, Nº 30, Autumn 1988, 61-88).
Graphic Novels and Young Adult Literature: An Effective Pairing
Daisy Kutter: The Last Train (Kazu Kibuishi)
Kazu Kibuishi’s science fiction Western Daisy Kutter: The Last Train uses distinctly toned art to put a new spin on traditional elements. Daisy was a noted thief and gunslinger, but she’s now retired, running a dry goods store and very bored.
Daisy Kutter: The Last Train
Buy this book
Her ex-partner, Tom, is the town’s sheriff, and two strangers have just appeared to try and recruit Daisy to rob a train. This could be a traditional Western, until the robots show up. At that point, it has a lot of the flavor of Serenity, with its modern take on morality and living outside the law. What makes this particular setup unusual is that they claim that the train’s owner wants Daisy to plan the robbery in order to test his security systems.
Kibuishi’s best-known for editing Flight, but in this, his first long-form work, the pacing sets this story apart. The opening scene, which establishes Daisy’s skills, mood, and personality, is wordless until another character arrives, yet the reader is instantly swept into the environment through differently sized panels that focus on key elements. Together, moments make up the bigger picture. Kibuishi’s fondness for small panels make for a dense story with plenty of world-building, although he uses full-page images when the mood calls for it.
All the classic scenes are here: the poker game showdown. The barroom face-off. The memories around the old gun. And of course, the climactic showdown on the deserted, dusty main street. I particularly liked the rain scenes, with Daisy pondering her choices while the water pours down on her — it’s a powerful visual, well-executed. She’s a strong, tough lead, a pleasure to watch.
The clash between individuality and the rule of law is at the root of every Western, and here the conflict is foregrounded though Daisy’s history with Tom. She’s always made her own rules and lived true to her own beliefs, but Tom now represents the rules of society. She can’t accept that maybe he’s right, or maybe he’s grown up in ways she hasn’t. Her stubbornness puts them both in danger; relying on only her skill isn’t enough. She has to learn to share with those she trusts.
American Born Chinese (Gene Luen Yang)
AMERICAN BORN CHINESE
colored by Lark Pienpublished by First Second Books
recommended for High School and Up, or Middle School in Moderated Settings
available now at your comics shop, your indie bookstore, Amazon.com, and for the Kindle
Yang explains, "I started American Born Chinese about five years into my comics career. (Though at the time, it was really more of a vocation since I wasn’t making any money at it.) Up ’til then, I’d done a couple of stories with Asian-American protagonists, but I never dealt with the Asian-American experience head-on. Since my own ethnic heritage is such an important part of how I understand myself, I knew I wanted to. I came up with three ideas and couldn’t decide which one was the best. American Born Chinese is me doing all three at once."
American Born Chinese
240 pages, color
Published by First Second Books
A couple of years ago, Gene Luen Yang began to release segments of American Born Chinese as mini-comics. I’d remembered his work from comics like Gordon Yamato and the King of the Geeks and Duncan’s Kingdom and that was enough to persuade me to give this new project a try. At the time, I remember thinking that I had absolutely no idea where this was going, and was more than a little unsure of it as a whole. Now that the book is complete and published as a single unit, my only real question is why I’d ever doubted him in the first place.
Yang’s American Born Chinese is one of the stronger examples of multiple, intertwined narratives that I can remember. Each of the three threads—the Monkey King, Jin, and Danny—stands on its own initially as its own, independent story. It’s not until we get to the end of the book that one sees how the plots of the three are connected, doing so in a fairly delightful manner. None of the stories feel like they’re getting short shrift from the others, and that balance between the narratives helps keep the reader interested in all three. At the same time, it’s clear from the beginning that the three stories are connected when it comes to the themes of identity and acceptance. All of our main characters are desperate to shed something connected to themselves—the Monkey King’s species, Jin’s Chinese heritage, and Danny’s cousin—for the sake of how other people perceive them. Yang neatly sidesteps the chance for this to become a story that preaches or speaks condescendingly to the reader, though. The basic theme is stated quickly and then left in the background for the reader to think about; while the basic idea permeates the book, one never feels like Yang is hitting you over the head with the ideas.
Yang has a beautiful, simple art style in American Born Chinese. It’s a very clean look for the book, drawing the characters with a minimum of crisp, clear lines. There’s a real care to the look and feel of the story, with as much care paid to the backgrounds and settings of each scene as to the characters that inhabit them. Each page works well as an individual unit, carefully composed and originally drawn in the dimensions of a square. It’s impressive how well each page fits together, with the flow moving from panel to panel easily, and everything from colors to lettering carefully selected to work as part of the greater whole. Yang seems to especially have fun with drawing the Monkey King sequences, which between the kung fu attacks and the elaborate looking demons gives him a real chance to show off his creativity and imagination. It’s a nice break from the reality of the other two storylines, while at the same time maintains the same basic visual style that Yang carries from one character’s thread to the next.
Yang collaborated with Derek Kirk Kim on the comic Duncan’s Kingdom some time ago, with Kim soon after having a break-out hit in the form of Same Difference and Other Stories. This, then, is Yang’s own break-out project; if this doesn’t put him on the map in comics and give him the attention that he rightfully deserves, I don’t know what will. Beautifully written and drawn, and coupled with extremely high production values from publisher First Second,American Born Chinese is a fantastic book from start to finish. Highly recommended.
Purchase Links: Mars Import | Amazon.com
—Greg McElhatton
Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi)
Marjane Satrapi’s elaborate simplicity: Persepolis
POSTED BY ESTHER CLAUDIO ON MARCH 28TH, 2011 6 COMMENTSPersepolis is Marjane Satrapi’s autobiography. It covers her childhood and teenage years in her hometwon, Tehran; her experiences abroad while she studies at the French Lyceum in Austria; and her return to a country devastated by war and mistreated by the Regime.
Therefore it is hardly surprising that the protagonist’s identity is formed at the crossroads of two cultures, the Western and the Eastern ones, without really belonging to either of them.
Satrapi herself has stated that “[she is] a foreigner in Iran. . . Nowhere is [her] home any more” (Tully, 2004) and this feeling of alienation is materialised throughout the work. Thus,Persepolis revels in the middle-grounds between opposite stances, with images which are able to show the complexity both of the situation in her country and of the author’s personal life. One of the richest and most representative images may be this one:
Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 283, 3)
[Click on image to enlarge]
This image shows the picture that she had to draw to pass the exam for university, where she would study fine arts. She knew that, in the wake of Iran-Iraq war, when propaganda was overwhelming and 40 % of places were reserved for martyrs’and handicapped people’s children, one of the exam topics would be the martyrs’ representation. This image constitutes an interesting re-interpretation of both Christian and Muslim religious symbology. Thus, we can read, in the text box above, that:
- I practiced by copying a photo of Michelangelo’s “La Pietà” about twenty times. On that day, I reproduced it by putting a black chador on Mary’s head, an army uniform on Jesus, and then I added two tulips, symbols of the martyrs, on either side so there would be no confusion.
But there is, of course, considerable “confusion” here. Satrapi alludes to the tradition of “La Pietà” to subvert the politically correct forms required by examiners by incorporating a Christian archetype of compassion and suffering with a nationalist Iranian composition. Simultaneously, she is stressing or commenting that the tendency to glorify martyrdom and suffering in propaganda is not a strategy exclusively used by Muslims or Iranians and that also Christians and Westerners have glorified it throughout History.Additionally, Satrapi subverts the tendency of westerners to dehumanize veiled women as if they were massive undistinguished figures, mere statues, like this model:
Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 301, 3-7)
[Click on image to enlarge]
In these panels, Satrapi draws herself with her friends around the veiled model – the archetype of the silenced Muslim woman that the Regime provides to be copied not only on their canvases, but also in their lives as women. However, this model is also the stereotype of the Muslim woman which has spread in the West.[1]
In contrast, we see Marjane and her mates looking at the woman in the chador with discontent; and in the next page, we learn the subversion tactics that many Iranian women from her generation employed after the revolution (“showing your wrist, a loud laugh, having a walkman”…).
Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape, 304,3-4,6-7)
[Click on image to enlarge]
The contrast between the woman in a chador and the women like Marjane and her mates highlights the difference between the image projected of the Eastern woman both by the Regime and by the West. In Persepolis, pictures of veiled women reject the stereotype of the Muslim voiceless woman. Instead, Satrapi’s female figures are human and full of character and individualism, even in veil.
As she herself has stated in an interview with Annie Tully: “the book Persepolis I wrote it for the other ones, not for Iranians” (2004) and it questions the image of the western woman as the paradigm of modern femininity, educated and liberated. In this way, Marjane Satrapi’s style dwells on the contrast, on the contradictions which problematise reality through an apparently naïve and simple drawing and narration.
REFERENCES
Satrapi, Marjane (2006) Persepolis (London: Jonathan Cape)
Tully, Annie. “An Interview with Marjane Satrapi.” Bookslut. October 2004. <http://www.bookslut.com/features/2004_10_003261.php> Accessed March 20th, 2011.
[1] As post-colonial feminists have stated, western feminism has set up as the paradigm of modernity, thus creating a stereotype of non-western women as a homogeneus block of passive, traditional women in the margins of progress. One of the most influential post-colonial feminists, Chandra Mohanty, states that western feminism ”colonize[s] the material and historical heterogeneities of the lives of women in the third world, thereby producing/re-presenting a composite, singular “Third World Woman”—an image which appears arbitrarily constructed, but nevertheless carries with it the authorizing signature of Western humanist discourse.’ ” Thus, she argues ”that assumptions of privilege and ethnocentric universality on the one hand, and inadequate self-consciousness about the effect of Western scholarship on the “third world” in the context of a world system dominated by the West on the other, characterize a sizable extent of Western feminist work on women in the third world.” (“Under Western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses“. Feminist Review, Nº 30, Autumn 1988, 61-88).